Notes on Usability

[fredini]

Hi-
I've recently moved to exclusively using Simplify 3D for all my slicing and have a couple notes on usability and feature requests:

1) Button placement on Models and Processes panes
Models pane has import/remove buttons under it, Processes has add/delete buttons under it. Because the functionality, appearance and placement of the buttons in relation to the list is almost identifcal, I have on serveral times deleted processes when I meant to remove a model. While I think this might be cleaned up with clearer language, I suggest the solve is to move the models buttons above the list. If you consider the philosophy of screen design "the story of the page" which dictates that we process screens the way we read in a Z pattern, it would make sense that the upper left corner of the screen is where we begin by adding models.

The other approach would be smaller +- buttons in the lower corner of the Processes window (for example, compare to Photoshop Layers palette and how layers are added/removed)

2) Interior supports
I am requesting the ability to print hollow prints with support that is both interior and exterior.
Usecase: I want to do Lost PLA casting of metal or glass, which entails creating a plaster-silica mold around the print, burning out the print and casting material in the mold. When I print with infill, there is a lot of material to burn out of the mold and there is expansion of the print during mold burnout so the mold gets cracks in it. What I would ideally like to do is print raft, walls and 0% infill with support that goes inside and out. Then the support can be removed and a mold made with minimal material. As far as I can tell this is not currently possible.

3) Model Settings: Numerical Scaling
When you double click the object to edit its scale/rotation, it would be very useful if you could type a precise size in the Calculated Properties Object size dimensions. As it is you can only click the Scale X to scale (Even though I might want to really scale Z to a precise height). Also, there is a bug in that when I scale X, the calculated properties are not updating until the window is closed and reopened. I would compare this dialogue to Netfabb Basic's scale window and consider that
• Any of the 3 x/y/z fields should allow editing, even though they should all be the same if we are uniformly scaling. This would update values in calculated properties so we can see the size we are making.
• Calculated Properties should also be editable so I can set X/Y/Z values to a precise measurement. Otherwise the fields should not be editable fields which imply the ability to change values.

Lastly, the ability to set multiple slicing profiles for a model is a laborious process so I would want to look at streamlining this process. I think this is a UI challenge, but the notion of creating multiple profiles for a single model is a confusing one for users. It would be a nice icing on the cake to make this more intuitive- I have some ideas about how this might be visually cleaner by creating a tree view daisy chain of processes, but I would have to think about it some more.

[JoeJ]

For #2 - pretty much any decent CAD package out there can hollow out a model. I feel like it would be a hack to tell the slicing software to handle a solid model like it wasn't solid. It handles models as they are modeled. Meaning, if you model it as a complete solid, the software will print it as a complete solid. Just hollow it out if you want to print it with supports inside.

On your last comment, I'd be interested to hear what ideas you have for better displaying multiple processes. A tree structure could be tough since multiple processes could apply to the same models, different models, multiple models, etc.

[fredini]

I just finished writing up some thoughts about how defining multiple slicing profiles can be improved with UI:
http://thegreatfredini.com/2015/05/09/s ... ace-notes/


Note: several times I have deleted a process when I meant to change the model, and this is why I am suggesting this change


This solution better enforces the "story of the screen", which is to start at the upper left

[S3D-Jason]

#3 has now been implemented in version 3.0. You can type whatever size you want the model to be (i.e. 20mm) and it will automatically determine the scaling parameters for you. Anytime you change things like position/scaling/rotation, the size dimensions are automatically updated as well.

This video has more information about the new model settings panel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5rLVYpeoXU